History of Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia is a monarchy, ruled by the House of Saud. Ibn Saud founded the kingdom in 1932.

Saudi Arabia's most important cities are Mecca, birthplace of the Prophet Mohammed and Medina, to which the Prophet moved in 622 AD.

Mecca and Medina are the two most holy places for Muslims.

The Holy Mosque in Mecca was the first place of worship for Muslims: "The first house of worship appointed for men was that at Bakka". Non-Muslims are not allowed to visit Mecca.

As well as daily prayers, the mosque is also a place for various gatherings and education.

Saudi Arabia has a unique responsibility to the world of Islam since one of the Five Pillars of Islam or religious duties of every Muslim is the Pilgrimage, or Hajj, to the Holy City of Mecca once in his or her lifetime.

Richard Burton, the British explorer, entered Mecca in 1853 disguised as a Muslim.

In 1998 more than twenty thousand buses, six thousand hospital beds and ten thousand doctors were on standby for the millions of pilgrims expected to make The Pilgrimage to Mecca.

The Saudi Company, ARAMCO, is the world's largest producer of oil.

Saudi Arabia was a founding member of OPEC.

Saudi Arabia has built a number of industrial cities as part of the plan to expand the non-oil sector of the economy.

The King Fahd Causeway, linking Saudi Arabia to Bahrain, is fifteen and a half miles long and is one of the longest causeways in the world.

Saudi Arabian men wear a long robe made of wool or cotton often worn with a cloak. Their headwear is a cotton square folded and held in place with a circular cord. Women's clothes are decorated with coins and sequins. A black gauzy head scarf may be held in place by a hat. An abaya or cloak is worn by women in public.

The Bedouin of the Arabian desert live in tents woven from goat's hair.

On special occasions Bedouin girls and women decorate their hands and faces with henna patterns.

The Arabian Nights are a collection of stories The narrator is Scheherazade, the wife of a Sultan, who tells a story each night to keep him entertained and to save her life. She never finished a story the night it was begun so the Sultan had to wait until the following day to hear the end. Aladdin, Ali Babar and the Forty Thieves, Sindbad the Sailor are some of the most famous stories.

Many of the words we use today originate from Arabic, among them alcohol, alkali, admiral and alchemy.

The name of the city of Jeddah, where Eve's tomb is said to be located, could come from the word for grandmother: Jaddah.

For thousands of years the Saudis have been mining gold, silver and copper. A mine some two hundred miles from Jeddah, known as the Cradle of Gold, was once the greatest gold mine in all of Africa and the Middle East.

Colonel T.E. Lawrence, a British soldier, known as Lawrence of Arabia, helped defeat the Turks in the 1914-1918 war. His account of the campaign is written in his book, the Seven Pillars of Wisdom.

In 1985 Prince Sultan Ibn Salman travelled aboard the space shuttle Discovery becoming the first Arab and first Muslim to travel in space.